Enabling Global Collaboration: How Open Source Leaders Are Confronting the Challenges of Fragmentation

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Today’s open source community is made up of millions of projects and contributors that are as diverse as they are numerous. This global range of projects means that open source initiatives gain the benefits of having many different approaches to solving solutions, but it also can lead to fragmented communities that duplicate efforts and bear extra costs and complexity. 
 
This report takes an in-depth look at these benefits and costs from the perspective of open source leaders around the world. The insights from each of the interviewees illustrate the complexities inherent to managing fragmentation in the open source world, from both a theoretical and practical standpoint. The discussion focuses on how fragmentation plays a role in the development of open source solutions, the integration of contributors around the world, and the governance of open source communities. It concludes with some key takeaways for collaboration and alignment.
 
Author: Anthony Williams, DEEP Centre Inc.
 
Foreword by:
Yue Chen, Head of Technology Strategy
Chris Xie, Head of Open Source Strategy
Futurewei Technologies, Inc.

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Open source communities are at the heart of an explosion of technical innovation, where industry leaders, engineers, and end users are collectively creating and improving the digital infrastructure on which the global economy depends.

With an extensive community of members, connections with thousands of companies, and hundreds of thousands of open source contributors, professionals, solution providers, and users, the Linux Foundation is in a unique position to investigate the growing scale of open source collaboration, and provide insights into emerging technology trends, best practices, and global impact of open source projects.

By leveraging project databases and networks, and through a commitment to best practices in quantitative and qualitative methodologies, Linux Foundation Research is designed to be the go-to repository for open source insights for the benefit of organizations and governments the world over.